Review: Doctor Who: The Adventures After

This is another in the current BBC Children's books series of anthologies and follows on from The Adventures Before.  This time we're looking at mini-adventures that happened after certain Doctor Who stories, and it's a mixed bag. Some of the stories are not really sequels and yet the contents pages and subtitle to the book suggest they are.

There are two stories written (or co-written) by stars from the show: Carole Ann Ford (with Rob Craine and Beth Axford) who played Susan in the show has 'The Verge of Death' which follows 'Marco Polo' and picks up on the prior events of 'Inside the Spaceship' where the TARDIS was trying to warn the travellers of danger. The idea is that a psychic creature has got into the ship and is attacking them ... 

And Katy Manning who played Jo has a story which follows 'The Green Death' about the Master attempting to get hold of the Metebelis crystal given to Jo by the Doctor.

Other stories are 'The Face of Fear' by David N Smith which is aligned to 'The Web of Fear' but which is more of a sequel to 'The Faceless Ones' as the Chameleons are back. Paul Magrs provides a proper sequel to 'The Daemons' as the Master (or Missy) is back and the 13th Doctor has to work with an aged Olive Hawthorne to stop Missy from summoning Azal again. Mark Griffiths brings us 'Harry Sullivan and the Chalice of Vengeance' which follows 'The Christmas Invasion' (one of the Sycorax survives and saves his mind which then encounters the 4th Doctor, Sarah and Harry in the future.)  ... Janelle McCurdy has 'The Ashes of Pompeii', a sequel to 'The Fires of Pompeii' (the Doctor and Donna have a second encounter with a Pyrovile)... Alfie Shaw has 'Aftercare', which follows the events of  'The Angels Take Manhattan' (a sad tale of Brian Williams trying to come to terms with Rory's death) ... and finally Beth Axford has 'Save the Earth', aligned to 'Kill the Moon', with clothes that eat people and the Doctor's coat having dimensionally transcendental pockets.

As I've said before about these books, they are aimed at 8-12 year old kids, and as time moves forward, so those kids fast outgrow whatever is being written for them. So an 8 year old in 2025 would have not been born when 'Kill the Moon' was shown, and would have been 6 when 'The Giggle' was transmitted (Ncuti Gatwa's debut) ... and only 1 year old when 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth' was transmitted (Jodie Whittaker's debut) ... my point is that it's hard to see how these kids, who have grown up in a world where Doctor Who is less 'event' and more 'cult' would react to the stories and want to buy them (or have them bought for them).

I feel that around the age of 6 or 7 is when we start to get our 'core memories' (as Inside Out might put it) and kids watching the show for the first time at around that age are more likely to then want to go and find out more ... especially if the watching is a shared experience with friends at school. But for something to be able to tap into that 'shared experience' it needs to be 'shared' ... Look at how well the whole Stranger Things phenomenon has grown ... off the back of Netflix planning and coordinating 'drops' of the episodes so everyone can watch at roughly the same time, and then discuss and want to see what happens next with their friends. Doctor Who just doesn't have the same degree of mass-market take-up these days, and when there is an opportunity to be taken, it tends not to be. 

I really hope that this book and others like it find a market, but I'm really not sure what that market is.

Review: Spirited

We discovered Spirited hiding on Prime. It's an Australian genre series from 2010/11 and is a little 'inspired' (if that's a thing) by shows like Ghosts or The Ghost and Mrs Muir and so on.

The basic idea is that a dentist, Suzy Darling (Claudia Karvan), finds that she can see the ghost of a 1980s punk rock star called Henry Mallett (Matt King). The series is all about Henry trying to figure out how he died and why he's haunting the apartment block in which Suzy has her work and living place. Just giving a basic synopsis like this does somewhat demean the whole as it's a well written and very engaging series, with some black comedy mixed in, and some great characters who grow and change as the series progresses. There's Steve, Suzy's ex, who starts out being a right bar steward, sleeping with basically anyone who will have him - and a surprising number of women seem to want him!  But by the end he has his own moment of revelation and seems to change his ways.

Henry is a smashing character and Matt King plays him with aplomb ... all eighties punk sensibility and rage packed into a tall lanky man who can't work out where it all went wrong. Claudia Karvan is a superb foil for him and, as the only human who can see and hear him, starts to grow fond of her spectral friend.

There's lots of good ideas on show, some great performances, and a very well realised romance blossoming between the two leads - even though they can't actually touch each other.

Recommended viewing.

Review: The Art of Time Travel by Peter Mckinstry

This is more like it!  After a seemingly endless succession of 'in universe' factual photo books from BBC Books about Doctor Who, finally we get a proper behind the scenes look at the work of art department designer Peter Mckinstry.

Peter worked on Seasons 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the revived Doctor Who series as a concept artist and designer, and his work spans pretty much everything that you see on screen. There are a great many superb illustrations here depicting everything from Sonic Screwdrivers to watches through guns and gadgets, to giant spacecraft and aliens. There's (of course) redesigned Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans and all manner of other things which Peter was commissioned to create for various other books and magazines, and accompanying them all is a commentary explaining the key points and thought processes that went into realising the ideas.

Alongside these there are Peter's emails and comments to Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat and their responses which give a great insight into how the ideas develop into reality for the screen.

I loved the book. It's big and chunky and full of colour, information and interest. The true behind the scenes elements have always been of more interest to me than 'in universe' continuity-type information and so this book is ideal! It's a fascinating insight into how a 'world' or 'alien' can be developed in Doctor Who and how every element is considered and thought through to give consistency to their race and culture, whether that be the jewellery they wear, the weaponry they carry, or even how they decorate their spacecraft or buildings.

The copy I was sent was a second printing, so maybe this has done really well to have been reprinted so fast ... or maybe they underestimated the print run it would need!  Either way it bodes well for more like this in the future.

Review: First Light - The Science Fiction Art of Alex Storer

I'm a sucker for art books, I love the collected works of people far more talented than I am at painting and drawing and illustration ... and so this new collection from Alex Storer is right up my street.

First Light collects together  many of Storer's pieces of fantastic art and is presented thematically: Cities, Stars, Worlds, Environments and finishing with a selection of book covers that he has created.

'Cities' presents some marvellously gothic creations. 'Daybreak' is a smashing vista of a man looking out at a purple and violet hued cityscape at sunrise, across a river, while a cat watches the man ... marvellously forlorn and evocative, the image has a hint of peace about it ...

'Thalassa' meanwhile is a drowned cityscape. The tops of skyscrapers poke through the waters, while taller structures are visible through the watery air. Another very evocative piece.

The images range from the neon drenched 'Night Shift' to lovers running across a green meadow ... Cities of all types are represented.

'Stars' presents spacescapes and rocket ships and spacestations ... all hanging in the inky star studded void. These are fascinating and serene.

'Worlds' goes to the planets and we have twin moons, space suited explorers, underwater creatures and incredible vistas.

'Environments' is similar, but focussing on specific conditions: ice and snow, caverns and tunnels dominate.

And finally the book covers for authors like Alice Sabo, Terry Grimwood and Andrew Hook. All great evocative cover imagery which makes you want to pick the books concerned up: the prime function of a cover!

All in all this 80 page book is a tremendous celebration of the imagination of Alex Storer and of a love of art and colour and shade and of incredible sights hitherto unseen. It's well worth a look!

Copies are available from Amazon at: https://amzn.eu/d/8GIDLHD

Review: The Moon Cruise by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

The Moon Cruise is the latest Doctor Who novel from Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, and is her first original novel for the BBC's range. Previously she wrote the novelisation of 'The Church on Ruby Road'.

In line with the other recent novels, The Moon Cruise is a short book clocking in at 189 pages. The story sees the 15th Doctor and Belinda part way through his second season (the novel places the action after the story 'The Well' when the Doctor is still taking vindicator readings from various places in his attempt to get Belinda back to Earth).

Here they arrive on what the Doctor thinks is a deserted asteroid, but which is reality one of the service corridors for a fantastic space cruise experience named The Moon Cruise. The ship is owned and run by Marilyn Moon, a character inexplicably modelled on singer and actress Marilyn Monroe, and as the Doctor and Belinda soon discover, the ship and its crew and its modus operandi are not at all what they seem.

The workers are prisoners, serving out a sentence which rises with every minor infraction, and Belinda ends up taking the place of one of them. The Doctor has to rescue her and so joins forces with the worker she replaced, a green-haired girl named Jax, to infiltrate the upper levels of the ship and to find out the truth behind the whole setup. But there are robotic guards everywhere, and giant centipedes roaming the lower levels ...

The novel has quite a few welcome influences from Doctor Who. We have, of course, the other space cruise liner story, 'Voyage of the Damned' with its robotic angelic Hosts and an owner, Max Capricorn, who isn't exactly human himself. Then there's elements from 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy' with the robot clowns, and also 'The Long Game' where the humans down below are controlled by a mysterious entity on the upper floors, reached by a single lift. It feels like a Doctor Who story, which is great.

Jikiemi-Pearson blends all these ideas together well, and her writing flows nicely, bringing the reader quickly through the story. The idea that the robotic guards have human parts inside also brings to mind 'Frontios' where the Tractators used human body parts to power their mining machines, or, indeed 'The Girl in the Fireplace' where the Regency Clockwork Men used human parts to fix up the spaceship they were travelling in. One thing I wasn't quite sure about was why there were giant centipedes and ember-emitting fungus in the lower floors - there's some words about how they just grew and multiplied there, but this is just Belinda's assumption - but it all adds to the suspense and provides for some great action sequences.

Overall the story doesn't really feel like a 15th Doctor adventure though, and in some respects I could 'see' the same story being told in the same way with any of the incarnations of the Doctor being involved. It's an enjoyable and action packed book, and once it gets going, it just keeps on going ... 

It's a diverting and enjoyable read and I had a lot of fun with it. A good way to pass an afternoon.

Review: Evolution by Andrew Skilleter

I'm a sucker for lovely art books, and this is partly why Telos has been dipping into publishing them over recent years.  Andrew Skilleter is an artist whose name is almost synonymous with Doctor Who. He has done so much over the years, creating cover art, posters, books, bookmarks and many other visual expressions related to the show.

He has published several artbooks himself, collecting much of his Doctor Who output, and you'd perhaps think that there wasn't much left for him to publish. However. Andrew is still working and has been creating new art for this book he calls Evolution. Partly because it showcases an evolution in his style to a more fluid form, and encompassing photography as well: basically making full use of the tools currently available to artists to create new and interesting work.

And that's what this book is: new and interesting. From the impressive gold embossed cover with a part fabric spine overlap, the book screams quality. It's been produced in limited numbers, all signed by the artist, and here we find the opening pages presenting new imagery of the Doctors.

Each spread is accompanied by a quote from the show, which Andrew explains, acts as a jumping off point to new adventures and ideas. So here we have companion Peri Brown reimagined as a 'space adventurer' in a red skirt and cape, wearing white gloves and holding a Star Trek-like phaser pistol. There's River Song in a very Jim Burns spaceship, an exploding Cyberman, a painting of Nyssa of Traken as some flying fey being, the Rani: all aloof and with another flowing red cape ... the imagery is impressive and it works. 

Following a central gallery of commissioned work and pencils showing a different side to Andrew's art, and presented as being 'The Under Gallery' presided over by the Curator, we have more fantastic imagery: Leela swimming underwater; Arizona Amy striding through the desert; Romana mk1 wearing a shiny blue catsuit and beside another Burnsian space car; while Romana Mk2 is flying through the air in a black catsuit and boots. 

There's a section on the Daemons, with new imagery of the Master and Azal, followed by other daemonic forces like the Malus and the Fendahl, the Haemovores and the Destroyer.

Andrew's classic 'poster prints' are reimagined as Radio Times covers next and they work very well indeed in this form, and then we're onto Jamie against a Highland background; Ace as a battle-suited marine, and Sarah Jane as a 'Spacegirl' dressed in another shiny spacesuit; Cybermen; Zoe; Missy; Captain Jack;  and finally of course, a Dalek.

The whole book is a joy! 

It's available from Andrew's store at https://andrewskilleter.com/store-gallery/doctor-who/drwho-books/evolution-doctor-who-arta-new-dimension/

Doctor Who Book Reviews: The Chimes of Midnight / Doctor Who Annual / Where's the Doctor

A few more recent Doctor Who titles to put through the review machine, and first out is The Chimes of Midnight by Robert Shearman. This was released in hardback along with another title called Jubilee and both are novelisations of audio adventures that Shearman wrote several years back. They have remained as popular audio releases and this is presumably why BBC Books has chosen them for release as novelisations. Jubilee formed the basis for the Doctor Who TV script that Shearman wrote in 2005, the story 'Dalek'.

The Chimes of Midnight is an eighth Doctor adventure, and the companion is Charley Pollard, a creation for the Big Finish audio adventures of that Doctor. As a novelisation, it works really well, and Shearman manages to create bags of atmosphere in a story which is redolent of past tales like 'The Celestial Toymaker' and 'The Space Museum', with tones of more recent fare like 'Ghost Light' and 'The Giggle' in there as well.

The Doctor and Charley find themselves at Christmas in an old house, where they seem to be at odds with reality in that they cannot interact with anything. As the clock chimes, so they find themselves faced with a murder, and the Doctor starts to investigate. But nothing is as it seems, and reality bends and twists around them, with the staff of the house behaving strangely, time speeding up, and the TARDIS blocked from them. It's a strange tale which maintains the mystery far beyond the half way point (when one might expect some answers to start to appear). 

I enjoyed the read, the text is eloquent and the characters all leap from the page. 

As an experiment to see if novelisations of the Big Finish audios might work, then it's a worthy start. After all there are rather a lot of those audios out there now to draw on in the future should BBC Books deem it worthwhile.

Also available is the traditional Doctor Who Annual, again written by Paul Lang, and this time with a story from Pete McTighe (a prequel to 'Lucky Day'). As with previous Annuals, we're following a tested format, and here there's an introduction from actress Varada Sethu who played Belinda Chandra, followed by pages looking at the various characters and stories from the last season (and the Christmas special which preceded it), the pantheon of powerful creatures (including the new-look Sutekh), some games and puzzles, a feature on Mrs Flood. a cartoon strip based on the animated sequence from 'Lux', a piece on Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, and a spread from the colourised version of 'The Daleks'.

As mentioned in previous reviews, there's a lot that goes into the Annual to try and make it interesting and diverse for the younger reader, and the team have again done a sterling job. I do wonder what the 2027 annual might bring next year as there's no new Who on television for it to use as a backbone. Maybe a more general look back over the show's past?

Another 'new' title is Doctor Who: Where's The Doctor? which is a Where's Wally-type book with 14 spreads of detailed illustration in which you have to find the Doctor, plus various other elements (detailed at the back) which you can also look out for.

The illustrations by Pablo Gallego and Jorge Santillan are charming, and the book claims to draw on work previously published in When's the Doctor? (2012) and Find the Doctor (2013). The strange thing here is that Find the Doctor was actually a complete reprint of material from When's the Doctor? and Where's the Doctor? (2013) the latter of which featured illustrations from Jamie Smart, whose work is not included in this book. ('Shackleton's Expedition', 'Metebelis III', 'Ancient Egypt', 'Ancient Greek Olympics', 'The End of the World', 'TARDIS Graveyard' and 'Victorian London' are all taken from When's the Doctor and thus by Jorge Santillan. There are therefore eight new pieces by Pablo Gallego (presumably) in this book.) 

There's also an updated version of the Greatest Monsters book from a few years back available. Obviously reprinting, repackaging and updating of older material is the order of the day!